HTC announces HTC One M8

HTC has formally unveiled its new flagship phone — the HTC One M8 — and for once we've seen the rumour mill do a good job of getting it right.

(Credit: Andrew Hoyle/CNET)

Bumped up to a 5-inch (still full HD) screen, the M8 sports a full aluminium unibody design, packing in a Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor running at 2.3GHz with 2GB of RAM. Storage is 16GB or 32GB, but this model has a microSD slot for additional storage — a welcome change from the HTC One.

A dual-lens camera system on the rear lets you adjust the depth of field and even focal points on photos you've already taken, similar to Lytro.

The M8 also has a revamped version of HTC's Sense UI, as well as new features to the BlinkFeed homepage from the original. Even better, you can now turn off BlinkFeed if you're not using it.

The M8 launched in NYC early this morning (AEDT), and the local launch isn't until the evening of 27 March, so we'll expect more information on carriers, pricing and timing around then. At the moment, we know that Telstra, Optus and Vodafone should have M8 stock from 1 April. We have a review from our US colleagues and we'll adjust that with local information as it comes to hand.

As a final note, HTC is definitely using the pronunciation "em eight" for the device. We're fairly confident Australia will be calling it the HTC One Mate from now on.